Xianzhang is a lineage of seals, which is different from name seals. Broadly speaking, it originated from the "auspicious words", "idioms" and "congratulations" seals of the Warring States and Qin and Han Dynasties. Distinguished in a narrow sense, it generally refers to seals of poetry, prose, and poetry that began in the Song Dynasty.
The content of the leisure chapter is "all-inclusive" and can be roughly summarized into the following categories.
1. Poetry. Since the printed surface is only made of dates and chestnuts, most of them are plucked from famous poems. If Ming Dynasty Wang Hong carved "Half Pond of Autumn Water and One Fangshan Mountain", Wang Gao'a carved "Naohong Yige" and so on.
2. Sentences. It also mostly refers to recording witty words from ancient texts or speaking from one’s heart. Of course, there are also people who make seals with the full text. For example, Zhou Fen in the Qing Dynasty took the trouble to carve 17 characters from Li Bai's "Spring Night Banquet in the Peach and Plum Garden" on a square-inch seal stone. The characters are like sesame seeds and are very rough work.
3. Proverbs. Literary men like to use aphorisms to encourage and discipline themselves. If Su Xuan of the Ming Dynasty engraved "A gentleman has a constant body", Zhang Hongmu of the Qing Dynasty engraved "Dong Zheng Yong He".
4. Auspicious words. Scholars also often picked out human seals. For example, Zhao Cixian of the Qing Dynasty had the seal of "Being blessed forever", Puhua of the Qing Dynasty had the seal of "May the flowers grow well and the moon be round, and the people live long", and Wu Changshuo of the Qing Dynasty had the seal of "Good wishes and longevity".
5. Notes. If a recent scholar named Yang Du asked Qi Baishi to engrave a seal with the words "Monk Yuanjing of Guanyin Temple in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province in his previous life".
6. Meaningful category. Such seals cannot be explained by users, and their inner knots cannot be explained. For example, the great painter Lu Yanshao was mistakenly classified as a "rightist" in the 1950s. In order to show his acceptance of the country's purpose and his feeling of injustice, he had the author engraved with "Yueren" and "I love Tongxiang" and other seals.
7. Narrative type. Such seals may be for people or art, and often have the meaning of mottos. Another example is the inscription "Reading strange books behind closed doors and welcoming distinguished guests out to explore the mountains and rivers behind closed doors" in the Ming Dynasty.
8. Commandments and admonitions. Such seals are mostly self-reflection, self-warning and admonishment sentences in the philosophy of life. Wang Yuru, a seal engraver from Shanghai in the Qing Dynasty, once engraved something like, "Don't cause brotherhood to be at odds with each other because of personal enmity, and don't cause discord between father and son because of small gains." It was so direct that it seemed to be lecturing others, but also self-teaching.
9. Chronology. If Jin Dongxin of the Qing Dynasty used the seal of "Dragon Year Dingmao", Zhao Cixian of the Qing Dynasty had carved two-sided seals of "Ding Haisheng" and "Pig". The great painter Xie Zhiliu's "Seventy-nine Years of the Dragon" seal is particularly popular among calligraphers and painters.
10. Resume category. This also includes Li Ji, etc. For example, Deng Shiru of the Qing Dynasty was engraved with the seal "lived by the stream of Xiangshan Mountain in Lingyan County", Zhao Shifeng was engraved with the seal of "lived by the stream of Xiangshan Mountain in Lingyan County", and Zhao Shifeng was engraved with the seal of "the ancestral home was in the state of Shen and now lives in the capital of the sixth generation".
11. Zodiac. It is a modern trend to use zodiac patterns as seals, and is generally used by calligraphers and painters to seal seals.
12. Appreciation and collection. Generally, the name of the restaurant and the surname are followed by "collection of books", "collection of paintings", "collection", "appreciation", "temporary acquisition", "review", etc.
13. Lineage category. From traditional Derived from the family tree lineage, Ruo Mingwangguan is engraved with the seal of "Descendant of Maitreya", and Qinghuang is engraved with the seal of "Descendant of the Great Idiot"
14. Self-deprecating and self-generating categories. Zhao Zhiqian engraved "Bend for five buckets of rice", Qing Dynasty Chen Hongshou engraved "I can't make calligraphy", Qing Huang Yi engraved "Painting plum blossoms and begging for rice", Qi Baishi engraved "I am also a fur breed", Li Keran's "White Everyone can play with it.
15. If the Qing Dynasty Wu Rangzhi engraved "People mistakenly call themselves tall because of laziness". Qi Baishi was in his decline, and he was often disturbed by the forgeries of Xiaoxiao's works, and he had no choice but to In addition, there is a seal engraved with the text "My paintings are mostly forged all over the world."